You NEED metal halide. I'm just sayin'.....

LOL!! Brad, you are the reason I posted this. :lol: ... what took you so long? :mrgreen:

I wanted to share the fun, but nothing good was coming up, so I thought I needed to straighten out the confusion. :)
I just remember snorkelling through the reefs and recalling that a real reef looks like it's lit by MH, not T5, so therefore to get an accurate representation of a real reef, you need MH. I looked at a tank last night lit with T5s, nice and bright with great colors, but something was just missing. I guess it's sort of the "snap" you get with a more direct light source. And you can tan under MH too, just like on a real reef.

That's the reason I went with MHs on my present tank. Plenty of light with T5s, but they don't have the "natural look" (well that and my wife told me to :redface: ) I still miss all the good things about T5s though. Shadowing and glitter lines are the only thing MHs add to a system IMO.

[quote=Reefer Rob;314642] I still miss all the good things about T5s though. QUOTE]

I guess I still fail to understand what these good things are.....

1.) Slim unit design and weight (not as big an ugly as Mh units)
2.) Multiple bulbs allow individual selection to fine tune your colour preference & par (as opposed to only ~4-5 realstic bulb selections/colours available with MH)
3.) Less energy consumption
4.) Less heat (even after 10 hours on I can put my hand on the unit vs. MH of which I still have a nasty scar on my arm from a fraction of a second contact with a fixture)
5.) Less bulb replcement cost (up to debate)
6.) Even light in all corners of the tank, no shadows or MH "spolight" effect


Just a few points that sold me.

set up a combo
 

T5 for the power and all of gregs other points, and maybe a small 70 watt halide for the shimmer. Best of both worlds, and hey, then everyone is on your team ( halide guys and t5 guys)



Probably not a great time however to mention I am a t5 guy.

Nate

Hmm.
1.) My CL MH unit is slim and lightweight
2.)I've always been able to select a color temp that was to my liking (really, how many combinations do you need)
3.)Have no info on this, but I'm sure any savings are negligible over the TCO (total cost of ownership of tank)
4.) With my enclosed HQI setup, heat is not an issue, I can touch any part of my fixture.
5.) <$200 yr, I'm happy with value for dollar here
6.) depending on fixture, reflector, same thing with MH. although I prefer different areas of exposure for different species placement in tank. I certainly don't have any "spotlight" effect in my tank.

I'm in for #2, #4 and #6, with #4: less heat being the big one. I've noticed with MHs some of my Acros will grow towards the nearest Halide, like a house plant in a window, so #6 would be my second advantage.

I really would like to try this, but I'm not sure how to fit it all over my tank or how the effect would look. Would you still get natural looking shadows? I'd still want at least 600W of T5 plus the halides over my 180.